Probe against The Wire in fake news case picks up as ex-employee Devesh Kumar summoned

With The Wire in the dock for outrageous fake news, its ex-employee Devesh Kumar has been summoned by the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police as the probe against the portal picked up steam.

This comes a day after searches were conducted at the residence of The Wire's founder Siddharth Varadarajan and founding editor MK Venu.The police seized electronic devices such as mobiles and laptops from the residences of Varadarajan, Venu and others based on the complaint filed by the BJP's Amit Malviya whom The Wire had targeted in a campaign of stories that turned out to be fabricated, fake and had to be retracted.

Meanwhile, the scurrying publication filed a complaint against its ex-employee- a consultant, Devesh Kumar. In the complaint, the publication had alleged that Kumar has a "malintent" towards The Wire, its Editors, and staff and has "fabricated and supplied documents, e-mails and other material such as videos with a view to damage its reputation. He has done so either on his own or at the behest of other unknown persons." It is another matter that other key staff of The Wire touted and claimed ownership over its now-retracted stories.

FIR against The Wire & its fake news

A FIR was registered against The Wire, its founding members, and others, under Sections 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 120B (Criminal conspiracy), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 469 (Forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 500 (Defamation) of the IPC.

The FIR was registered on the complaint of Amit Malviya, the national convenor of the IT department of BJP. In the said complaint, Malviya had accused The Wire of publishing a defamatory report on October 10, which claimed that Meta removes any post reported by the BJP IT cell head without any questions asked. The report, as per the complaint, also alleged that Malviya was on an 'XCheck list' giving him direct authority to take down posts on the Meta platforms.

While The Wire, after retracting its story and facing tremendous condemnation, had apologised to its readers, the BJP leader had noted that the news portal did not offer him an apology despite 'maligning and tarnishing my reputation and causing serious harm to my professional career', and had gone ahead to file a complaint.